CALIFORNIA RESISTS BULLYING ALONG THE COLORADO

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, MARCH 3, 2023 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

      “CALIFORNIA RESISTS BULLYING ALONG THE COLORADO”

 

        There’s one word for what six of the seven southwestern states that draw water from the Colorado River are trying to do to California: bullying.

 

        The good news for Californians is that Gov. Gavin Newsom isn’t standing for it.

 

        No, Newsom hasn’t directly called out the other six states involved (Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada) for their tactics. He’s let his appointee Wade Crowfoot, California secretary of natural resources, do the talking.

 

        But Newsom has a record of standing up to bullies, as in his attack ads during the last campaign season against both Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Both insult California at every opportunity. Newsom fired back in mostly symbolic TV commercials, once calling DeSantis “Gov. DeathSantis” because his laissez faire Covid polities probably resulted in tens of thousands more deaths from the pandemic than if he’d followed shutdown policies like Newsom’s.

 

        The bullying this time comes from the other six Colorado River basin states, which want California to cut its use of the river’s water more than they would their own usage.

 

        It’s a case of bullying, for sure, a matter of 6-1. With 12 U.S. senators to California’s two, the other six states have been louder. It’s also a case of several smallish tails trying to wag the big dog, California. More than 20 million Californians depend directly on the Colorado, while the other six states total about that much population among them, not all using Colorado River water. California usage impacts many more people than direct users of the river water, too, because it takes pressure off the state Water Project and cuts the threat of drawing water from wild Northern California rivers like the Trinity, Smith and Eel.

 

        For sure, cuts are coming in water usage along the Colorado. That river’s two big reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, stand at levels not seen since they opened in the early and mid-20^th Century.

 

        The other six states want usage cut in part in proportion to how much water disappears en route to a particular state via seepage and evaporation. That puts most of the onus on California, because it’s nearly the end point of the river.

 

        But California is insisting on its rights under the 1920s-era compact that governs the Colorado. And California is being consistent. For example, this state did not resist when the Central Arizona Project aqueduct opened in 1993, taking billions of gallons daily from the river across hundreds of miles south to the Valley of the Sun, where it allowed huge growth in Phoenix, Tucson and their suburbs. Without that water, authorized under the compact, Arizona would be far shy of its current 7.2 million population.

 

        California figuratively sucked up its gut and relied more on internal supplies, including Sierra Nevada Mountains snowpack and underground aquifers.

 

        Now the other states essentially want to scrap the old compact, their main argument seeming to be that they agree  mistreating Californians would be terrific.

 

        But Newsom is not standing for it, insisting the law is on California’s side.

 

        The dispute could eventually harm Newsom politically, as swing states like Nevada, Arizona and Colorado could be important for him in a future presidential bid.

 

That’s not intimidating him.

 

The first referee of all this will likely be President Biden’s Interior Department, which demanded an agreement among the states by late January. That did not happen.

 

Now Biden is caught in the middle as he looks to a possible reelection run next year. Does he alienate some “purple” states by causing new water rationing there, or does he go after big cuts in California, source of his largest bloc of electoral votes? Any reduced use would especially hit the largely agricultural Imperial Valley, which grows most of America’s winter lettuce, broccoli, melons, onions, carrots and spinach.

 

Reality is there will be slashes in Colorado River usage, despite heavy snowpack at the system’s Rocky Mountain headwaters. Snowmelt will not nearly refill the big reservoirs.

 

Newsom’s administration has proposed substantial cuts. Said Democratic California Sen. Alex Padilla, “Six other Western states dictating (what) California must give up isn’t a genuine consensus decision, especially (when) they haven’t offered any new cuts” of their own.

 

A preliminary decision will likely come by mid-summer.

       

 

    -30-

    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net 

THIS YEAR’S PROP. 13 DESERVES A YES VOTE

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MARCH 3, 2020, OR THEREAFTER


BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
       “THIS YEAR’S PROP. 13 DESERVES A YES VOTE”

          In an ideal world, there would be no need for this year’s Proposition 13, the only statewide measure voters will decide in the ongoing California primary election, which culminates on the official March 3 Election Day.

          But anyone who has visited a public school or a public charter school in the last few years knows this proposition is a must. Yes, some of the ballot arguments against it are correct, but they don’t override the pressing need for the $15 billion this measure would provide for school and college construction and renovation over the next few years.

          Paint is peeling, plumbing is ancient and roofs are leaking in many, many schools and most local districts don’t have the budget to bring in the workers who could make repairs. Other districts use temporary classrooms – call them trailers – because their real buildings are overcrowded.

          For sure, the ballot argument for a “no” vote is correct in saying this money won’t by itself “achieve a standard of excellence” in education. But voters can be certain of this: Children studying in decrepit buildings generally perform worse than kids in nicer facilities.

The same for students at colleges and universities, which would also get some of this money.

 Give schools and colleges money to build what they need and there will be fewer excuses available for poor performance.

          The nay-sayers, led by the anti-tax Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. and its articulate president Jon Coupal, are also correct that in the best of all worlds, the repairs and buildings to be financed by Proposition 13 would be paid for as the work is done, using some of the state’s current budget surplus of $21 billion or $22 billion (both figures appear in the official ballot pamphlet).

  

          But school buildings in California are traditionally financed with bonds. While the “no” argument correctly says the total cost of this bond including interest will top $27 billion over 35 years, with annual payments of almost $800 million, those payments won’t be nearly as burdensome in 2055 as they seem today, unless America experiences no inflation in coming decades.

          But Coupal and friends are wrong when they imply that this measure’s backers deliberately tried to confuse voters by applying the same Proposition 13 tag to this measure that’s associated with the landmark property tax cutting 1978 initiative bearing the same number.

          “Don’t be confused by the deceptive title of this spending measure,” they warn. But it’s not deceptive. It’s just counting. Back in the 1990s, when ballot measures began getting numbers well above 200, state officials decided that each time the ballot measure count reached 100, it would automatically recyle back to 1. So it was that when state lawmakers in a bipartisan vote placed this measure on this ballot, the next number up was 13. Did they know this? Probably. Did they create the situation? No.

          Coupal & Co. also claim higher levels of debt inevitably lead to higher taxes. They’re sort-of correct. That’s because the state normally covers about 60 percent of the cost of school projects it funds, with local districts paying the rest. They get that money by going to their own voters for an OK to levy higher property taxes. This will no doubt happen if the current Proposition 13 passes and its new money begins to flow. But no local tax increase can happen without a 55 percent supermajority vote of the locals.

The “no” side also may be literally correct when it says “not one cent…will be spent for direct instruction in school classrooms.” But what instruction does occur will hopefully take place in cleaner, safer, more modern environments where children are proven to learn better.

          But the money most likely will not go into the “wasteful money pits” the “no” side predicts, because of a clause limiting administrative costs to 5 percent of the total pot.

          All of which means this measure deserves to pass, even if it’s not perfect. Voters should heed the old warning about not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

         
-30-
    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It" is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

TPP WITHDRAWAL A SOUND TRUMP MOVE

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, MARCH 3, 2017, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
     “TPP WITHDRAWAL A SOUND TRUMP MOVE”

          From his first day in office, when President Trump kept a campaign promise and dumped the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement painstakingly and secretly negotiated by ex-President Barack Obama, he’s been accused of giving China unprecedented license to move into other Asian and South Pacific markets.

          Not so.

          The first thing to understand here is that the TPP contained some of the worst aspects of the long-controversial North American Free Trade Agreement, better known as NAFTA, with very few improvements. The second is that for China to usurp U.S. – and especially California’s – trade in the 12 countries involved, those countries would have to be willing partners.

          The pact was to include Australia, Vietnam, New Zealand, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore, Chile, Peru, Canada and the oil-rich sultanate of Brunei. None of these countries and states wants to be dominated by China and since Trump pulled the U.S. out of TPP, China has made no aggressive trade moves on any of them.

          Which means all or almost all will likely be back at the bargaining table within a year or so aiming to work out a new free trade deal with Trump.

          That’s political reality, even if some Trump critics don’t like to admit it, choosing instead to blast every move he makes just because it’s he making the move.

          Rather than bemoan the trade agreement that isn’t, how about using that failed, putative deal as a starting point for drafting a new one?

          The rejected agreement had some huge flaws, just as NAFTA does. Labor leaders who applauded Trump as he signed the order killing the proposed TPP said some of its provisions figured to send many thousands of jobs out of America – particularly from California. Environmental groups said it bore the potential to contribute to global climate change by placing factories in countries with flimsy air and water quality regulation.

          But its worst feature was an international tribunal of lawyers from various countries with the power to override some laws of member countries and even to overrule the U.S. Supreme Court.

          This was an outright assault not just on tough state environmental restrictions like California’s, but also on national sovereignty. Supporters of the TPP denied this, claiming such usurpation of powers would never happen.

          But just that threat was realized early in NAFTA’s history with the overturning of some U.S. dolphin-safe regulations for canned tuna because they impeded free trade. In short, because some Mexican fishermen were not careful to avoid catching dolphins in their nets in waters off Southern California, federal rules designed to spare an intelligent species died at the hands of foreign lawyers more interested in money than mercy.

Something similar almost happened to California quite directly, also under NAFTA. This case involved a Canadian company called Methanex, based in Vancouver, British Columbia, which made and marketed a gasoline additive called MTBE that could cut smog while boosting octane ratings. But MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether) turned out to have noxious odors and taste when it inevitably leached from gasoline station storage tanks into ground water. The additive also sparked cancer fears, although that alleged threat was never proven.

          California, under former Gov. Gray Davis, banned MTBE in the late 1990s. Methanex sued in NAFTA’s tribunal and the case was heard in Washington, D.C., far from affected Californians. The case took several years, and eventually Methanex lost because of MTBE’s health effects. Validating the California ban, the additive has not been used widely in this country since 2005.

          The entire Methanex effort at using NAFTA to override California’s health concerns was a travesty. Yet, the TPP was written to allow similar cases.

          So the TPP was a bad deal on several scores. Which doesn’t mean a better deal can’t be negotiated. Trump touted his supposed deal-making skills incessantly during his campaign last year. Now he has a chance to negotiate a better, safer, cleaner, fairer trade deal with Pacific nations than Obama ever could.      

           
-30-

    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

INITIATIVE CARNIVAL COMING NEXT YEAR

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, MARCH 3, 2015, 2014 OR THEREAFTER


BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
    “INITIATIVE CARNIVAL COMING NEXT YEAR”

          If voters get annoyed and sick of seeing paid petition circulators outside their favorite big box stores during the next 15 months, they will have only themselves to blame.

          Low voter turnout is one big reason to expect a larger-than ever proliferation of ballot initiatives looking to share the fall 2016 ballot with presidential and U.S. Senate candidates. If you didn’t vote last year, you’re part of the reason for any upcoming initiative annoyances.

          As usual, it will take valid signatures amounting to 5 percent of the total vote in the last general election to qualify an ordinary initiative for the ballot and 8 percent to put a constitutional amendment before the voters. One year ago, those percentages meant it took just over 504,000 signatures for a regular initiative to become a proposition and about 807,000 for a constitutional change. The extreme low November turnout means it will take only about 366,000 and 586,000 voter signatures, respectively, this time.

          That lowers the cost to qualify measures by well over $1 million each and allows a wide variety of interest groups frustrated by legislative inaction on their pet causes to circulate petitions in the next few months.

          There is, of course, no rush. In previous election cycles, some initiative sponsors sought to get their proposals onto the June primary election ballot. But since passage of a 2012 law that consolidates all voter-qualified measures on the fall ballot, there have been no initiatives to vote on in June. This makes the primary ballot less interesting and helps lower turnout then. Because initiative sponsors have almost six months to gather their signatures, they don’t really have to get serious until autumn of this year at the earliest.

          Democrats passed the fall-only law knowing voter turnout is far larger in November elections than in primaries, often doubling or tripling the spring numbers. November voters are on average much younger and more ethnic than in June, a trend that escalates in presidential election years like 2016.

          All this will likely translate into as long a ballot as Californians have ever seen, even surpassing some of the book-length ones of the 1990s.

          Anti-tax activists warn of a proliferation of proposed new and renewed levies, including an extension of the 2012 Proposition 30 sales and income tax hikes, parts of which expire at the end of next year. They warn of a renewed bid for a state oil extraction tax – California remains the only oil-producing state that does not tax drilling by the barrel. Opponents warn this could cause higher gas prices, and it might also dampen industry enthusiasm for hydraulic fracking of reserves in the Monterey Shale geologic formation stretching from Monterey and San Benito counties south into Los Angeles, Kern and Ventura counties.

          Anti-tax folks also fear an initiative to slap another $2 atop the current 87-cent tax on each pack of cigarettes. This one would be billed as a boost for public health.

          And they worry about a proposal to lower Proposition 13’s two-thirds-majority requirement for passage of school bonds and parcel taxes either to a simple majority or to the 55 percent now needed to pass school construction bonds.

          Already qualified is a referendum to eliminate the legislatively-passed statewide ban on plastic grocery bags, which would leave that issue purely a local decision. This would allow bag manufacturers – first to take advantage of the lowered signature thresholds – to continue selling 9 billion more plastic bags in the state yearly than if the ban becomes effective.

          It’s not unheard-of for voters to reverse decisions by their elected lawmakers. They did it last fall by overturning state approval of an off-reservation Indian casino and they did it in 1982, nixing the so-called “Peripheral Canal” plan for bringing additional Northern California river water to Central Valley farms and Southern California.

    Besides all these measures, marijuana proponents will likely present a plan to legalize pot completely and tax it, a la Colorado. There also could be an effort to alter Proposition 13 to tax commercial real estate at higher rates than residential property. A minimum wage increase proposal is also in the works, as are several ideas for changing public employee pensions.

          Put it together and the prospects are high for an initiative carnival, one of California’s most interesting and important ballots ever.

    -30-
    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net